


A Bottle of Cream

by joeyrz



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-28
Updated: 2010-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-17 07:57:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/174608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joeyrz/pseuds/joeyrz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started with a bottle of face cream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Bottle of Cream

It started with a bottle of face cream. And no, not like that! Get your dirty minds out of the gutter.

To Noah Puckerman, it was just a stupid bottle of fruity cream. One of the many hundreds he guessed Hummel had, since his locker was always full of them, even if he did give them away (Finn and Matt had gotten some).

To Kurt Hummel, it was a brand new bottle of Elimis Time For Men S.O.S. Survival Cream. A 1.7 ounce, $72 plus shipping and handling daily skin moisturizer that had the perfect balance of marine extracts, lavender and myrrh that kept his face oil free, healthy, moisturized, wrinkle free and best of all, blemish free. He was a teenager, just like any other, and even if he took marvelous care of his skin, he was still under the constant threat of break outs, blemishes and, Lord forbid, pimples.

And now, thanks to Karofsky, it was just a puddle of white on the pavement of the school parking lot.

Puck had come up in time to keep the hockey jocks from throwing Kurt into the dumpster, something he’d stopped doing when Hummel had joined the football team – and something he was making sure no one else did after he was a victim of the Great Slushie War. But he wasn’t fast enough to stop Karofsky from stepping on the bottle, breaking it and spilling its contents everywhere.

Kurt was crouched down, his fancy messenger bag open on his side, as he picked up the rest of his stuff that had fallen out, carefully wiping everything before putting them back in carefully. Puck took one of the wipes from the travel pack Kurt had opened and helped him clean a small pencil case, handing it over to Kurt without a word. He picked up the small black bottle – it was completely busted. It’s hard plastic shell was no match for Karofsky’s boots. It had split down the middle.

“I’m sorry, it’s done for,” Puck said, looking it over.

Hummel’s smile was a little wobbly as he stood back up, adjusting his clothes. “It wasn’t your fault this time. And thank you for keeping them from throwing me in with yesterday’s trash. It was spaghetti sauce and it would have completely ruined this jacket.” He kept his head high as he strode into the school, looking to all as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn’t just been bullied.

It wasn’t until he sat down for first period that he noticed he still had the broken bottle with him. The trashcan was all the way in front of the room, so he just dumped it into his bag, intending to throw it out later.

_*_*_*_*_*_

That night in his house, as he pulled out Santana’s math notebook to copy her answers, the stupid bottle came out too. He threw it too hard at his trashcan, but missed it – it went long and fell onto his desk. He ignored it; he wasn’t getting up from his bed right now.

_*_*_*_*_*_

That Saturday he got a text from Matt asking if he’d watched the YouTube links he’d sent him. He shut down his PS3, he was stuck in a God of War level anyway, and he needed to find the online guides anyway. He dropped into his chair, and booted up his computer. As he logged in with his password and opened up his email, the bottle caught his attention. He opened a new tab to Google and typed in the brand and product names. A tiny bottle like this probably cost 10 or 15 bucks.

He almost fell out of his chair when he saw the retail price.

_*_*_*_*_*_

Two weeks later.

“Here,” Puck almost snarled as he pushed a small white shipping box at Kurt. It was torn open and closed again with a scrap of duck tape. “I had to make sure it wasn’t something else, that’s why it’s open.”

“What’s this?”

“An apology. It’s not exactly the same bottle, but eBay had them cheaper in two smaller bottles. But it’s the same shit. I asked.”

“An apology?” Kurt asked too confused to even open the package.

“For all the bullying. We’re team mates now, twice over. I’m sorry, ya know. That I ever did it,” he finished lamely, hands in his pockets and resisting the urge to bolt.

Kurt frowned and looked down at the parcel. He pulled off the tape, and dug into the box, pulling out two brand new 1oz. bottles of Elimis Time For Men S.O.S. Survival Cream. He stared at them for what felt like hours, before looking back up at Puck, smiling brilliant and wide.

Puck smiled back, felt butterflies in his stomach and thought, still smiling, ‘Oh, shit.’

The End


End file.
